Vanes can become easily damaged in the field due to collisions with other arrows, target pass through, target misses, etc. Any of these situations may lead to the vane needing replacement. Replacement usually requires a specialized jig, knowledge and skill to replace damaged vanes properly. Therefore, many archers opt to take a damaged arrow to an archery pro shop to have the vanes replaced.
The one piece vane has been around for many years, it has been used on mainly youth style arrows as it is a lower cost method of producing a vane, usually it is a press or friction type fit onto youth arrows. It is easy to use the press or friction type fit for this application due to the consistency in diameter of a certain manufacture's youth arrow. Nobody has successfully marketed a one piece vane to the adult market as there are more variations in diameter of arrows and not a good way to attach the one piece vane to the varying diameters.
Some manufacturers market a piece of shrink tubing that has three conventional vanes glued to it. It is slid onto the arrow and dipped into boiling water where it shrinks and conforms around the arrow. Tests and field use of shrink tubing has indicated there is much room for improving the durability of the heat shrink vane. Also, there is a long felt need for an inherently less expensive alternative.